Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Subwavelength colour imaging with a metallic nanolens

Abstract

Early research into metamaterials by other scientists has shown that nanostructured metamaterials can focus incident light and act as a lens. Although such structures are capable of subwavelength imaging, they have two major restrictions: they can only work at one particular wavelength, and the image can only be transferred for a short distance within the limits of the near field and is therefore undetectable in the far field. Here, we propose a lens made of stacked silver nanorods that is capable of colour imaging at subwavelength resolution in the visible range. The subwavelength image can be transferred over distances of at least micrometre scale and magnified before detection by conventional optics devices. Such a nanorod lens has the potential to be an indispensable imaging tool, with particular application to biomedical applications, where individual viruses and other nano-entities could be imaged in colour in the far field.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Optical energy transfers plasmonically through the lengths of silver nanorods.
Figure 2: Long-distance image transfer can be realized through a stacked arrangement of nanorod arrays.
Figure 3: The resonance band becomes broader with an increasing number of layers.
Figure 4: Gap-size dependence for the stacked layers of metallic nanorods.
Figure 5: The effect of tapering in stacked layers of metallic nanorods.

References

  1. Pendry, J. B. Negative refraction makes a perfect lens. Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 3966–3969 (2000).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  2. Pendry J. B. & Ramakrishna, S. A. Refining the perfect lens. Physica B 338, 329–332 (2003).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  3. Smith, D. R. How to build a superlens. Science 308, 502–503 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Shelby, R. A., Smith, D. R. & Schultz, S. Experimental verification of a negative index of refraction. Science 292, 77–79 (2001).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  5. Smith, D. R., Pendry, J. B. & Wiltshire, M. C. K. Metamaterials and negative refractive index. Science 305, 788–792 (2004).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. Fang, N., Lee, H., Sun, C. & Zhang, X. Sub-diffraction-limited optical imaging with a silver superlens. Science 308, 534–537 (2005).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  7. Ono, A., Kato, J. & Kawata, S. Subwavelength optical imaging through a metallic nanorod array. Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 267407 (2005).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  8. Kik, P. G., Maier, S. A. & Atwater, H. A. Image resolution of surface-plasmon-mediated near-field focusing with planar metal films in three dimensions using finite-linewidth dipole sources. Phys. Rev. B 69, 045418 (2004).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  9. Maier, S. A., Kik, P. G. & Atwater, H. A. Observation of coupled plasmon-polariton modes in Au nanoparticle chain waveguides of different lengths: Estimation of waveguide loss. Appl. Phys. Lett. 81, 1714–1716 (2002).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  10. Maier, S. A., Brongersma, M. L., Kik, P. G. & Atwater, H. A. Observation of near-field coupling in metal nanoparticle chains using far-field polarization spectroscopy. Phys. Rev. B 65, 193408 (2002).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  11. Qin, L., Park, S., Huang, L. & Mirkin, C. A. On-wire lithography. Science 309, 113–115 (2005).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  12. Koenderink, A. F., Hernandez, J. V., Robicheaux, F., Noordam, L. D. & Polman, A. Programmable nanolithography with plasmon nanoparticles arrays. Nano Lett. 7, 745–749 (2007).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  13. Srituravanich, W., Fang, N., Sun, C., Luo, Q. & Zhang, X. Plasmonic nanolithography. Nano Lett. 4, 1085–1088 (2004).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  14. Aizpurua, J. et al. Optical properties of couples metallic nanorods for field-enhanced spectroscopy. Phys. Rev. B 71, 235420 (2005).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  15. Liu, Z., Lee, H., Sun, C. & Zhang, X. Far-field optical hyperlens magnifying sub-diffraction-limited object. Science 315, 1686 (2007).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  16. Smolyaninov, I. I., Hung, Y. & Davis, C. C. Magnifying superlens in the visible frequency range. Science 315, 1699–1701 (2007).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  17. Shvets, G., Trendafilov, S., Pendry, J. B. & Sarychev, A. Guiding, focusing, and sensing on the subwavelength scale using metallic wire arrays. Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 053903 (2007).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  18. Johnson, P. B. & Christy, R. W. Optical constants of nobel metals. Phys. Rev. B 6, 4370–4379 (1972).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Jun-ichi Kato of RIKEN, Japan, for fruitful discussions. This work was financially supported by the CREST (Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology) project of JST (Japan Science and Technology Corporation).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

All authors collectively conceived the concept of the work presented here. The authors contributed equally in carrying out calculations and in writing this article.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Satoshi Kawata.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Kawata, S., Ono, A. & Verma, P. Subwavelength colour imaging with a metallic nanolens. Nature Photon 2, 438–442 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2008.103

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2008.103

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing